5/21/2012

Hey Everyone, So it sounds like you all had somewhat of a boring week hehe, other than the softball game. How is the weather out there? is it warming up pretty well? No, I have not gotten the letter from you yet, I was wondering what happened, if it was stolen or not, but I will still keep a eye out for it :). I'm in the process of making a Mormon.org profile, President Merkley gave us the okay to make them now, all tho, he doesn't want us posting any pictures of us in our missionary clothing or saying that we are currently serving a mission, there are a lot of profiles that have that and we don't want people to think that the only people that have them are missionaries, so when you read it, there is stuff in there that says that I recently served a mission and so forth. Mom, I think that is awesome that you are going to read the Book of Mormon again! You should totally do it! In a way, I agree with you, scriptures can get pretty boring to read sometimes. I don't know if I'm used to it or not, but I am enjoying it now. What I do is that I pray before I read it, to invite the spirit in so I may have a better understanding of what I am reading so I can take it in and apply it easier through out my life. Maybe what I'll do with you when I come home is read it with you every night and as we read I explain it to you so It will make more sense. But don't wait for me to come home to read it, start now and get a head start!! Yes, I did get a new companion, his name is Elder Ashby and he is from Weston, Idaho. Woot!!! Finally! not a Utard! Get this, Weston is "West" of Preston, funny huh? He has been out for 4 1/2 months and is pretty homesick. Honestly, I truly believe that that may be the one of the only reasons why President Merkley put me with him, because I was super homesick when I first came out too. He misses a lot of things. He is kind of a cowboy so he misses a lot of that type of stuff that he did back at home. He also misses mountains like I do, people say that we have mountains here but no, these are NOT mountains, they are hills, don't tell them that tho, they'll get angry. President called me Tuesday afternoon and wanted to tell me that he wants me to train Elder Ashby again, but not in a way to where I flat out tell him that I'm retraining him, that might make him feel bad. Missionaries are trained for 12 weeks so I asked President if I am going to be with him for that 12 weeks and he said that he would like that, so I asked him since I have one more transfer after that, will I be here for the rest of my mission and he said that that might happen. So, odds are, I'll stay here and die.... as a missionary. But I've been told that before and President has spiced things up a bit and thrown me into a different area. I'm kind of going to miss Elder Young, but there would be sometimes where he would annoy me a lot, so It was really good that he left. On Thursday, we went to transfer point in Mt. Vernon to drop off Elder Young and wait for Elder Ashby to get here, we got there at about 10:30 and waited there until almost 1:00! in the mean time, I hung out with other missionaries that I haven't seen since I was in Owasso and so forth. We also played woofle ball base ball, that was pretty fun, When Elder Ashby finally came, he was with Elder Denton! My first companion in Mountain Home! I literally flipped when I saw him. He was my favorite companion to serve with!! We spent time catching up and what not, he was serving with Elder Ashby and he told me a bit about him. He is quiet, real quiet, he doesn't talk much to people. So I will have to work on that... For most of the week, we went around town introducing Elder Ashby to members and others. It was pretty good, I've been explaining to him who everyone is, it will take a while for him to get a grasp on it, but he will get it. After we got back in town from Mt. Vernon, we immediately went to our set appointment with a less-active and a member, Brother Price took us there. It was the same less-active lady that we had a lesson with the other week, remember her? Well she was wanting to know about partiarchal blessings and what is the point pf them and so on, so we talked to her about it. Her kids were being somewhat of a distraction to her, so Brother Price entertained them and sort of played with them to keep them quiet. So since Elder Ashby doesn't talk much....yet, it was pretty much up to me to teach her. Guys, I'm not kidding when I tell you this, that was probably one of the best lessons that I have had on my mission yet! The Spirit was so strong there, she started to cry again. She had all of these side questions that didn't really pertain to our lesson, but I was fine with it, every question that she had, I was able to answer. She said to me: "Wow, you know a lot! I need to pick at your brain for a while". Surprisingly, I don't know a whole lot but enough to know what I'm talking about. She told us that she can feel the Spirit every time we come over and teach her and she wants it to stay with her. She also told us that whenever she does stuff that she is not supposed to do, she can feel the Spirit start to leave her and feels really bad. I testified to her that that is the Spirit telling her and warning her of danger and to stay away from those bad things. She understands that she needs to make some serious changes in her life in order to live the way she is supposed to live. At the end, Brother Price offered to give her a blessing of comfort and she agreed so we stood in and as he gave it, the spirit was even stronger, which caused her to cry some more. At the end of the blessing, she gave him and hug and said said some stuff to him and after that she gave me one as well and said thank you. I wasn't expecting it, but I didn't want to seem rude and push her off, so if didn't bother me much. Funny story, we were getting ready to bike to one of our investigators' house to introduce him to Elder Ashby and we biked maybe 200 yards and his bike chain broke! That was the first time that I ever saw that happen, it was a used bike tho, he got it from the mission office. The bike looked really familiar and I asked him if he remember who's bike it used to be and he said that he think it belonged to Elder Gordon. I flipped out! I said I served with him in Owasso almost a year ago! I knew I recognized that bike. So we had a member that was nice enough to take us to the store so Elder Ashby could get a new chain. Well he is still having bike troubles. He can bike, but not very well, we had another member take a look at it and he said that there are certain parts on it that are really worn out and he may have some spare parts. Hopefully he does, bikes don't come cheep. That is about it for the week, everything is going good, I really appreciate all of the support that you give me through letters. I wish more people would write me. It can get lonley out here sometimes. Please tell people to write me!!! Thanks for all that you do Mom. Have a great week!! I love you all!! The church is true! Elder Daniel Stuart

5/8/2012

Hey Everyone, Glad to hear that everyone is doing good. Mom, I think that is awesome that you and Dwight are hanging out with the Rooks more often, I love that family so much, they are practically my second family. I look forward to that day when I see everyone again and share the many stories that I've experienced through out my mission. I also look forward to seeing my other friends that are out on missions as well, like Garrett! I bet he has bizarre stories in South America, he's already told me some through letters. I don't think I will be getting a letter from him anymore, it takes too long and it can be hard sometimes to find time to write pages and pages to one another. I bet Adam has crazy stories too. After all, he is in the Philippians ;) I'm going pretty good, the ward is doing a fantastic job feeding us, I bought something that I have never tried before, its called Nutella, have you ever heard of it? It's kind of like peanut butter but its not, it's a coco hazel nut spread that you put on bread. Pardon my french, but, its freaking good! I put it on my ego waffles the other day, oh man it was good! :) I haven't sent off my package yet. I'd figure I would wait until you send me the money if that is okay, I may need it soon tho, transfer calls are this Saturday and if I leave, I have this huge box that I have to carry around with me. If you cannot send it to me, then I can send it, I have the money. So, clothing wise, I am doing pretty good, other than 2 of my suit pants zippers broke within a week. What the heck?! I'm not even gaining weight!!! I think what the deal is is that I may not of zipped up my pants all the way up and when I get on my bike, I may of bent the metal which caused the material around it to rip. I asked the lady here that is kind enough to mend our clothes if she can fix it and she told me that I am better off buying new ones because they really can't be fixed. So, Mom, if you don't mind, I'm going to put my suit pants in the box when I send it home and if you can, can you go to JC Penny's and get the exact kind please? Since I am going home soon, you only need to buy me one pair, not two, since it is getting hotter, I only wear my suit for church and other meetings, other than that, I wear slacks. So my week was a lot better then it has been since I've gotten here. We were able to teach more people this week then have in the ending of the other weeks I've been here, I don't know what it is, but it was freaking awesome!!! It defiantly made my week better, other then my allergies are starting to come again, I love spring time and everything, but I just hate the allergies. Also, this week was pretty sad and heart breaking, not for me, but for the ward. Two ward members passed away within a week of each other, one of them wasn't doing too good to begin with, I've never seen him but he was falling down hill fast. Another was a man that was mowing his lawn and had a heart attack and died in his backyard. I don't think I've met him either, but he was a less-active and was starting to come back, from what Elder Young told me, he was in the process to getting the priesthood again. There was a few sad faces at church this week. It makes me so grateful to know about the Plan of Salvation and to know that there is much much more after this life, if we look at all of this at a eternal perspective, life here is but a small part compared to eternity. It's like looking at a football field, imagine that the length of that field is eternity, now place a golf ball near the goal post, that golf ball represents our time here on Earth compared to what will happen after this life. So, we will see our loved ones again, it may seem forever, but it really isn't. There is a man in the ward that is older that is super cool, he has to move to a different town to be closer to the doctors due to his health falling fast too. Last week I saw him and talked with him and he was doing good. Yesterday at church I saw him and he has his walker and his oxygen tank with him again and he literally looked like he just went through a few stages of chemotherapy. He looked like a zombie. We stopped by his house yesterday evening to say good bye to him, he is leaving today, he still looked terrible and I asked him if he would like a blessing and he agreed without thinking about it. I gave him the blessing and when I finished, he still didn't look too good but he sure acted a whole lot better, he had his funny sense of humor and was cracking jokes again. I truly felt that that was what he needed, I'm going to miss him. Do you remember when I told you that we had a blitz the other week and the other set of missionaries came down and helped us out? Well I had the impression that we needed to see a certain lady that day, so we went over and nobody was home. Well last Sunday, we had a meeting and our ward mission leader told us to go and see her and I told him how I already tried but we will try again. So this time, I got her number and I gave her a call and I talked with her for a bit, I asked her if we can stop by and see her, she sounded really excited and said, " Yes! absolutely!! that would be great! when can you guys come over?!?!" Well we scheduled a time to see her and we had the stake patriarch come out with us to see her the next night. She told us that she has been wanting to come back to church, but she is afraid to. She lives with her boy friend and has two kids with him. He hates the church, so I think that is a huge reason why she is afraid to become active again, because that would mean that she has to make big changes in her life. Well I am glad that the Stake Patriarch came out with us, he really answered some questions that I didn't have the heart to tell her, but he did it in a nice way to where he said that there is hope. Well we invited her to church and she came!!! What a great lesson! The Spirit was definitely present. On Wednesday's we go to the church and talk with members during mutual and also have frequent meetings with the Bishop, we had another one that night and we were talking to him about the blitz and how it went. He has definitely gained more trust with us since I've gotten here, not to brag at all, there have been missionaries in the past that didn't do much, I think that may have lost the Bishop's trust. Well now, we are constantly asking what we can do for him and we get it done as soon as possible, I really think that he opened way up when I proposed the Book of Mormon challenge and now that it is a go, there are so many members constantly asking for more than one copy, I may of told you this last week, but the youth here are amazing and a few have asked for like five copies! Now, the three of us talk all the time, he is actually really funny has his own side job on Craig's List buying and selling stuff, it's hilarious! Anyways, he asked us if we could give a talk in Relief Society this Sunday, so yesterday. He also may want us to give a talk in sacrament in a few weeks, I'll tell you more on that in the future. Apparently there are a few sisters in the ward that don't really know how to give a copy to someone, including the Relief Society President. So, we agreed to do it. Well, our ward mission leader teaches the missionary prep class and he texted us on Thursday and said, "Elder Stuart, I need you to teach the mission prep class again this Sunday again, I'll be out of town" A few weeks ago I taught the class the Plan of Salvation and our ward mission leader liked it so much, I guess that is why he asked only me to teach it. Turns out that he will be gone for the next three weeks, so I'll be teaching it for a bit. So I agreed. Well at this time, I think that I bit off a little more then I can chew, we have to plan for two lessons this Sunday, well we got that all taken care of and the lessons went great! while I was in the Mission Prep class, Elder Young was in the Gospel Principles class teaching the less active that came. The Relief Society lesson went really good as well, I walked in that class for a second the other week and saw a sister reading her lesson out of a article and she was mono toned the entire time, I thought that was kind of boring, so when we were in there, we made sure it was exciting and funny in some aspects, kind of like a prep rally getting them ready for a football game, but in a reverent way to where the Spirit was still residing there. We got a lot of compliments on it too. I've made myself a personal goal to read the standard works before I go home, I did the math and if I read 17 pages a day, I will be able to finish it before I go home, I know, It's a huge goal but I want to do it and I really believe that I can do it!! Well, I got to go, this letter took up a huge amount of my computer time, I hope that all is well and I also hope that you all have a great week!! Talk to you on Sunday!!! The Church is true!!! Love always, Elder Daniel Stuart